"I do not see what else we can do."
"And you, Leo?"
"I agree in everything but the last part. I hope my uncle will not suffer my friends to remain down here in the inn. He will certainly invite you to stay at the castle."
"Don't reckon upon that too surely; I doubt very much whether he possesses the virtue of hospitality or indeed any virtue at all. Even should he do so, I shall not accept his invitation. I wish to be entirely free and unfettered, and am determined to live on veal sooner than stay at the castle. What do you think about it, Herwarth?"
"I agree with you. We will stay here at the Post and engage rooms, that Leo may be free to stay with us when we make excursions together among the mountains."
"Agreed; the rooms are a decided improvement upon my plan. Then it is all settled, and 'tis fortunate, for here comes the soup."
While the three strangers had been talking together in the inn parlour the postmaster had been having a gossip with the two peasants from the Zillerthal who had been their guides across the Schiechjoch. It was just such a gossip as he enjoyed.
The men, who were in the habit of seeing many strangers and of continually acting as guides across the glaciers and in difficult ascents, maintained that of all the Bergfaxes they had ever seen the gentleman with the black beard and the sallow face was the biggest fool. They had been with him and his companions four days, and he had some fresh nonsense for every hour in the day. But he had nous enough for all that, and he was always first in all the steepest paths. He didn't care where they walked: ice or rocks were all the same to him; he was never dizzy, and never tired either. Day before yesterday, when they went up the Drei Maidelspitz, they had had such a snow-storm that the guides themselves had been almost frozen, but neither of the three gentlemen had uttered a word of complaint, and the black-bearded one had laughed and sung and thought it all right, and the whole expedition a capital joke.
He was teasing the others all the time, especially the youngest, whom he called 'Knight;' but he didn't mind it, he only laughed, and all three were the best possible friends. The youngest was a merry gentleman and joked a good deal, but he was not such a fool as the black-beard. The third gentleman, whom they called Leo, was the most sensible. When he was walking alone he often looked very grave, and even sad, but then Delmar would join him and talk such crazy nonsense that he had to laugh.
All three were first-rate people, but they liked Delmar best; he saw to all the money matters, and was generous as a prince. He was always deceiving the others, and in a very odd way, very different from the usual one; when for example he paid three guilders he would pretend that he had only paid one, and would go on declaring that never in his life had he known travelling so cheap as it was in the Tyrol.